More from William Somerset Maugham

  1. I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked ... it is a precept that I have foll…
  2. Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
  3. He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
  4. She saw shrewdly that the world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willingly avoids the sight of distress.
  5. D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay,…
  6. It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and …
  7. The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.
  8. I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.

All William Somerset Maugham quotes